today, i wake up wearing an old band t-shirt and i’m sixteen again / pulling jumper sleeves over my palms / keeping my eyes on my feet / earphones in / willing myself invisible / refusing to step out of changing rooms in anything that clings to my skin / flinching from mirrors and cameras / nobody wants to stay too long at the beginning of a cinderella story / before the lenses and makeup and hair-flipping confidence / before the boys who call you a frigid ***** for expressing an opinion start to slide into your DMs / saying “hey, you seem cool, i’d love to hear you talk about feminism.” / but they’d love get you drunk first / love to get funny girl / cool girl / beer-pong and dancing on tables and witty comebacks / always-slipping-out-of-your-hands / let’s-tame-this-shrew-wild-girl / like yeah give this girl a stage but stop her if she makes you uncomfortable / we like a damsel-in-distress, big-blinking-eyes-trophy-wife / not the girl who stood in between her best friend and the ones who mocked her for her body / not the girl with bloodied lips instead of red lipstick / grinning, saying, “you’re going to have to go through me.” / nobody likes an ugly girl with a mouth full of words / so you learn to swallow them / be prettier, shinier, smoother / show them a piece of glass instead of dagger / lie in wait to turn the tables because you still remember / what it’s like to be sixteen and forced to look at your body as a liability / what it’s like to be sixteen and told your anger is embarrassing / just another teenage phase

there was a wolf
I tell you
sharp teeth, a stench
I tried to run I tell you
wouldn’t listen
Little girl hearts
Beat and behave like
A sparrow
leery fingers touch
Lingering wounds
don’t touch
He wouldn’t listen

feast your eyes onto this
soak it in
milk, blood, cherubim, and all
feast your eyes on this atrocity;
atrocity, tragedy, calamity
you can't help but look anyhow

tosses me into his bed
tosses me into his garden along with the tulips and chicken bones
waits for me to sprout next spring
i wonder how she'll be-
how she'll bloom
she'll spit ichor and honey through her teeth
annual or perennial
we'll never know

fret not, fret not-
breathe in the summer night
throw yourself down into the garden
bare your neck to the rose bush and forget it all
forget the cherubim
forget the milk
save the blood
save her

volume i
A Portrait of My Sixth-Grade Self
___________________­

Eleven-year-old fingers
swollen with baby fat
dig into the gaudy shimmer
of turquoise eyeshadow
encased in its shattered compact.

I apply the pigment,
erratic smudges extending
from my lash line
to just below my untamed brows.

The blue powder accentuates the swirls
of my fingerprints in dizzy figure eights.

But you can't quit your own skin
like you can quit ice skating lessons.

I am in the sixth grade
when the Popular Girls
in my class tell me that,
if I want to get a boy to like me,
I have to change the way I look.

I abide by the rules of the
Unofficial Mean Girl Doctrine:

{no. 1}

I mustn't wear sweat pants,
these sloppy Old Navy rags
that I have owned for three years.

See,
denim is superior to cotton
even though it leaves
cavernous indentations
on my stomach.

Sweat pants forgive
the extra swell of your waist line.

Denim punishes you
for what you don't have,
more specifically
for what you have too much of.

I ask my mom for skinny jeans
because perhaps if I can
shrink all that I am
into this blue, unyielding fabric
I will feel thinner than I actually am.

We buy the skinny jeans from Old Navy.

{no. 2}

My signature high pony tail is
unacceptable.

I should wear my hair down,
they profess.

I am not sure if this is
because of the tufts of frizz
that loom over my scalp
like wasted dandelion seeds

(I wish... I wish... I wish...)

or if this is just a necessary ritual
in the abandonment of my girlhood.  

After I unsheathe my curls
from their rubber-band Bastille,
their trial commences.

My ringlets slither
in hostile circulations,
executing frequent detours away
from anyone who might scoff
at their animalistic bedlam.

If only I could will
my spectators to stone.

Cuz no one ever dared
**** with Medusa
and her curls.

Instead,
I settle for a flat iron.

{no. 3}

Do everything in your power to be
Beautiful
including, but not limited to,
the laws indicated above.

Yet,
despite my grandest efforts,
it is never enough.

I am never enough.

I am the Walmart Edition
of what the Popular Girls
want me to be.

With my gaudy eyeshadow and the
cheap Dollar Store bracelets
that I wear around my wrists,
plastic flowers blooming
upon threaded stems
that nip at the hair on my arms.

One day on the bus ride home,
a boy from my class tells me
I am too hairy.

"Huh?" I ask,
pretending I haven't heard him.

"Nothing," he mumbles back to me.

See,
little girls are supposed to play with
jump ropes and Barbie Dolls.

They are not supposed to
play with razors as they strip away
every misplaced hair on their body
or consult Teen Vogue
for the latest beauty hacks
like they are Gospel.

This year of 2011/2012
has been engraved  into
the historical road map
of my every insecurity.
The legend of this map,
depicted in smeared globules
of sugar cookie lipgloss,
deliver me to my destination:

self hatred.

Mascara stains the
topography of my flesh
in inky, dotted lines

I follow.

I plummet
like the eternal run
in my stockings.

One way plane ride
non-stop
never to return
from this perception of ugliness
and then--

flight


down.

Impermanence is tattooed on me
and

Saturday still tastes like tequila and

all the slow lazy kisses blur between boys

that won’t matter in five years anyway

Half a person and still a girl,

Everyday I think

I’m too young to be this age

so I give you this gift
disrobed doll parts
with baggage
and you love it
it is your first broken toy
and you fix it up
breathe life into it's smile
until it's eyes no longer gleam
and you throw it to the dogs
on the patio in the night
and they love it
it's their first broken toy

Lather, rinse, repeat.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Soak, wash, repeat.
Sweep, sweep, repeat.
Wipe, wipe, repeat.
Scrub, scrub, repeat.
Dice, dice, repeat.
Wipe, dry, repeat.
The tears that are good.
Pour, stir, repeat.
Open the door.
Serve the food.
Greet, greet the guests.
Smile, talk, repeat.
Say bye-bye, repeat.
Massage, press, repeat.
Yelp in pain.
Grab your abdomen.
Rub, press, repeat.
Let the sari unwrap.
Shake your head no.
Oh oh.
Run, hide, cry, plead.
Rub your stinging cheek.
Sob, sob, repeat.
Dab, dab, repeat.
The tears that are deserved.
Press your straining scalp.
Grab tight the bed sheet.
Groan, hiss , repeat.
Fake, fake, repeat.
Pain, pain.
Again!
Sore, sore, all over.
Go make a drink and then,
Massage, press, repeat.
Pick up the nephew.
Ignore the daughter’s lies.
Pat, pat repeat.
Put him down to sleep.
Sing the lullabies.
See your daughter writhe.
Writhe, writhe, repeat.
Kiss your daughter’s hand.
Feel her skin burning.
Watch your daughter weep,
Cry herself to sleep.
One drop down then two.
The tears that are meaningless.
Lie down as if asleep.
Twist, turn, repeat.
Wake up before dawn.
Now, you put on.
Red, green, black and gold.
Vermillion, bangles, beads.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

Red-Haired Woman I admire her
Red-Haired Woman got a mind of her own
But Red-Haired Woman got to learn to mind her own
Not everyone takes as kindly to your words
As kindly as I do
And even then, I raise doubt
Just like I raise the ace of cups

Pale as a vampire
Dressed in inappropriate funeral attire
She’s a killer queen
But not in practice
She keeps her Passion Pop
In her pretty hands with charcoal claws
Strangling the bottle’s neck
Whilst she drinks the nectar

She wears art decade black sunglasses
I see the world
Through rosy kaleidoscope lenses
I dream of marmalade skies
She speaks of vicious lies
Which might be true
But I have not a clue
I very much hope
That they are not

Because whilst I may take her words kindly
Without the slightest hint of salt
I trust that she is forever sweet
For her eyes glitter with justice
As she tells me these things
About the life I’ve led
Next to hers

I don’t want them to be true
Because if they are true
It would mean
I have not led
A life of marmalade skies
And of marshmallow pies
It would mean
That the roses I see
Are thorned after all
That the lilies I see
Adorn the funeral
Are toxic after all

Red-Haired Woman, I admire you
You're strong
And courageous
With flaming red hair
And eyes of sapphire blue
With spidery lashes of thick mascara
You do not die without a challenge
The world would be worse without you
And for that, I thank you